“If you already have something you do not have to go after it! That is just a silly statement to make and I am appalled that noted theologians have not taken him to task for such a statement.”

I agree with you completely! I was so shocked to hear and read the statements that makes Jesus to be not equal in some way with God and yet know that theologians and Pastors aren’t jumping up to take these men to task for what they are doing to Jesus. Men like this would only find themselves agreeing with groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and it totally blows my mind that we let these men get away with saying these things. Is it because we value degrees and book learning so much that we cannot call someone to task if he is highly educated? Have we become mindless robots who nod our heads and let these guys put down the Son of God to a inferior place in the Trinity? I just question when we will wake up and see what has happened to the church. Will we see the wolf skin when they question the resurrection? What really is next?

“Pay off”???? What?

Also, why would Jesus have to go after something he already possessed?

“Burk thus renders the sense of the verse as, “Although Jesus existed in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God as something he should go after also” (139). The payoff, then, of Burk’s careful grammatical investigation is that Philippians 2:6 affirms the ontological equality of Father and Son while maintaining the functional subordination of the Son, even in his pre-existent state (cf. 139–40 n. 46).”

If you already have something you do not have to go after it! That is just a silly statement to make and I am appalled that noted theologians have not taken him to task for such a statement.

He IS equal with God, therefore Burk’s statement about Jesus viewing the reality that He IS God and therefore EQUAL to God since He IS God “something he should go after also” makes no sense.

Why would the Creator of the Universe have to “go after” something when all things are His? This is a frightful example of bad theology.

Jesus being God, came to the earth and set aside what was already His [equality with God] until His work on this earth was accomplished. Because equality with God was already His, He laid it aside. Laying something aside [temporarily] is hugely different than not going after something.

“After all as I discussed with Mr. Ware - that if women are subordinated to men this doesn’t mean that Jesus is eternally subordinated to the Father. In other words, Jesus can be completely equal with the Father in every way and this doesn’t mean that women cannot also be subordinated to men. Each issue should be dealt with separately and it is such a shame that subordinationists cannot seem to leave the two as separate.”

Exactly, Cheryl! I do not see how the two are connected and I totally see that Jesus being completely equal with the Father in no way affects the comp argument that a WIFE is subject to her husband. All I see is fear coming from the complementarian camp when it comes to making their arguments. When we have to stoop to make God subordinate because He is self-described as “ezer” instead of admitting that the word “ezer” does not imply subordination, we have surely lost.

some claim that 1 tim 3:2 ‘excludes’ women from eldership because it ‘only’ says husband of one wife…. yet if the same logic is applied to Ex 20:17… ONLY men are not to covet their neighbour’s spouse…
(let alone the whole issue of ‘having to be married and have children that follow the Lord etc from 1 Tim 2)

k

A common charge against egalitarianism is that it would “emasculate the church”. Since the church is the Bride of Christ, then how can it be “emasculated”? How do you emasculate a bride?

Yes, Kerryn, comp. theology is circular. It draws meandering lines around gifting and tears the body of Christ in half. As someone else stated (can’t remember which blog), comps use a “pink hermeneutic” that says “A man can do anything not expressly forbidden in scripture, but a woman can’t do anything not expressly allowed for her in scripture.”

i sure agree with your statement that we ‘are’ male and female rather than it being a definitive aspect of us being made in the image of God…after all, the animals and plants have gender, right?! i just think that Gen 1:27 is scripture (God) telling us that male and female are equal before God. How wonderful to get that ‘established’ at the beginning of time!

For some (complementarians) it ‘all’ seems to link together into one big ‘connected’ (circular!) argument :
God ‘is’ male (or at least ‘more male’ than female’?! because he is called ‘Father’ and ‘Son’), therefore males have some kind of ‘generic’ authority/responsibility/ability ‘over’ females… therefore women must be restricted to be ‘under’ this authority in the home / in ministry - regardless of their actual personal ability/character/position in Christ….
recently (since the late 70’s) the whole thing about the subordination of the Son to the Father has been used by some to support the other doctrines above…

If God is ‘male’ and our gender is ‘eternal’ - based on the claim that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father …. and therefore women are generically to be subordinate to men…. what do we make of the fact that all believers (male and female) are going to be ‘married’ to the Son in heaven… ?
(Jesus said there is to be no marriage in heaven b/w humans mt 22:30 …because we are to be married to ‘him’ Rev 19:7-9)
If gender is going to continue in heaven, it sounds very much against the concept in scripture that marriage is between ‘a man’ and ‘a woman’…

It just doesn’t hold together for me… for me it seems that gender cannot be an essentially ’spiritual’ thing - rather it’s just how we are here on earth…necessary for mulitplication (fulfilling our mandate Gen 1:28!) and earthly marriage is a forshadow of what God intended for us with Christ in heaven as his Bride… (As Paul says in Eph 5 - the marriage b/w Christ and his Church is a profound mystery - illustrated in some humble way through human marriage). There is no male and female (in a spiritual sense) in Christ (Gal 3:28).

Anyone disagree? Agree?

it seems to me that each of these comp ‘arguments’ above are built upon each other and round and round they go…it’s a bit like a bowl of spaghetti all mixed together into one big supposedly ‘convincing’ dish - but if they are individually assessed scripturally on their own merits they fall way short of being convincing (in my humble opinion!)
i guess when it’s all said in a rush ‘together’ the argument seems stronger and more comprehensive, but when ‘dismantled’ and studied at each level it seems to me to fall apart.
as someone who currently finds myself to be sitting in the egalitarian side of the fence , I am trying to learn how to discuss the egal-comp stuff with those who are on the ‘other side’ in a helpful way… so much emotion seems to come into play… my approach at the moment is to try and ‘break’ the argument down in to these (supposedly interrelated) individual claims and assess them for their ‘own’ merits… i am praying it will help!

(I sure can ramble on – sorry! Just processing my own thoughts again I guess!)

(-: kerryn

The issue in the garden between man and woman is burred by the faulty teaching that God only gave the prohibition to the man, that women’s conception was the same in the garden as it is now and that God gave man a special rule that included the rule over his wife. These are made-made traditions that can be properly refuted using the inspired words and the inspired grammar from the book of Genesis. More to come in future posts.

The issue of the temporary subordination of the Son is also blurred by a faulty interpretation of 1 Cor. 15:28 that takes away the full authority and rulership of the Son of God in the future. This must be dealt with and dealt with decisively so that we can once again recognize Jesus as Lord and God without giving in to those who downgrade his “role” and his authority.

Yes, it has been difficult, but it is doable. The time is now and the tools are in our hands to present a viable, in-context and compelling exegesis to these hard passages.

On the other hand, I am not aware that historically, before the last 30 years, there has been any association of hierarchy in the trinity with hierarchy between male and female. Please correct me if I am wrong. but I have never seen evidence of this.

In the early church, sexuality was problematic, and some held that there was no sex in the garden of Eden, and others that there was sex but no lust. Gender relations were understood to have been altered not only in the degree of hierarchy, in that it was harsh, but in that there was no hierarchy before the fall, because Adam and Eve were only friends in the garden and not subject to desire/lust.

The way to regain this proper state, in the early church, was to be a virgin or martyr. If a woman was a virgin or martyr she escaped her femininity and returned to the true state of the soul, which was neither male nor female.

Therefore, the true state that we are all seeking in Christianity is to be once again free from our sexual constraints. In this framework, it would be very difficult to see male and female as projecting relations within the trinity. Rather, we as souls, although we do happen to be male and female, are in the image of God.

I haven’t any quotes at the moment, but if you find something that would support this, I think it would clarify the fact that subordination in the trinity, whether it exists are not, has not historically been used to reinforce gender hierarchy. See also Craig Keener’s paper, which is available on the internet, by googling his name along with trinity and subordination.